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This evening, for our final study, I wish to discuss with you the problem of pain. And when I so describe it, I mean it somewhat strictly. There is a related problem, and that is the problem of evil, which generally refers to man's abominable cruelty to man. And why, if there's a God of justice, he allows so many hundreds and thousands and sometimes millions of people to suffer at the hands of their fellow men, and in particular at the hands of ruthless dictators.
But that aspect of the problem we shall not have time to consider at any great length this evening. The problem of pain is somewhat different. As generally phrased, it runs like this. If there is a God who is all powerful and at the same time all loving. So that being powerful, he can do exactly what he wishes to do. And being all-loving, would never do anything contrary to love.
And if there is such a God, why do so many people suffer such bad things. In my experience, this is a question that crops up in the minds of those who are not or not yet Christians. Some, of course, use it merely as an excuse for not repenting when they know they ought to repent. But some, and particularly in Eastern Europe, who have been brought up in atheism, when challenged to believe in God, will reply in this fashion.
But how can I believe that there is a God who is almighty, all powerful, and all loving, as you say, and allows so many people to suffer such bad things. It is a problem that comes home to the hearts of many Christians. And not recently converted Christians only, but Christians whose lives and families are distraught by severe suffering. Why me? Can God really be loving me?
The problem of pain then. I say at once that I have no slick answers to the problem of pain. What I shall do is to try and put forward some grounds of hope. I certainly do not have final answers to all the many problems that pain raises. And in the second place, I am aware that when it comes to the problems of pain, two kinds of answers are necessary.
There is, of course, what you might call the intellectual problem that pain raises, such as I have enunciated. If there is a God, he's loving and powerful, why does he allow pain? Doctrinal, theological, intellectual problem. But when people are suffering pain and in the middle of pain, intellectual answers, theoretical answers, tend to be not too helpful. They need something to comfort their hearts, to nerve their courage, to make them feel that somebody cares, and that the suffering is not merely destructive.
I had a colleague at one stage whose daughter of about seven or eight years old was de- diagnosed as having some problem with her spine, such that if it were not treated, says the surgeons, she would develop very serious curvature of the spine in later life. They advised an operation, warned the parents it would be very painful for the child, and that for some months. The child was not in any particular pain to start with.
The parents decided to have the operation done. You can imagine the problem when the child, after the operation, began to feel the pain for many months. It wouldn't be intellectual answers that could help the child so much, though mum and dad would do their best to explain why the operation had to be done. What would be more necessary is the sense in the child's heart that mum and dad hadn't protra- b- b- betrayed her and had allowed it for her good, and that she could trust her mother and dad still through the experience.
So it is with the problem of pain with us adults. We need both answers. Intellectual answers that can satisfy our minds. Answers, other answers that will fortify our hearts. So let us face the problem now and see what we can find. The problem, why, if there is a God who is all powerful and all loving, why do ma- so many people suffer such bad things?
I say to my atheist friends, I said, all right, we'll get rid of the problem, shall we? You can do that, get rid of the problem, by rejecting the whole idea that there's a God. Become an atheist. Refuse to believe there's a God. Then you don't have any problem, do you? Because if there's no God, the only way you'll account for things, the only way I know that's on the market, is to hold atheistic evolution. And since evolution is a blind process, without any purpose in its head, and depending largely on chance permutations, what would you expect?
If that is the cra- correct account of how the world has come to be and we have come to be in it, what would you expect? But a huge amount of pain and suffering. So now get rid of God and you have no problem. Well, you do have a problem. I had a colleague at one stage, and we lived near each other, and of a morning we would walk together to work, and very often would walk through the park, and at springtime, with the shrubs coming out so beautifully and wonderfully, you know, my friend would start baring his heart, so to speak.
He was an atheist, you see, and he often used to pull my Christian leg pretty unmercifully for my beliefs, you see. But this morning he said, David, you know, I do sometimes have a problem. You needn't talk to me about mother's love, says he. I can produce that in the, in the, in the, uh, in the, uh, science faculty by injections and one kind of a thing or another. But he said, look at this tremendous beauty of creation around us. How does nature, said he, manage to put on such a wonderful show every year regularly? I said, my boy, I don't know how it manages to do it on your presuppositions.
How would you account for the good things if there's no designer. Oh yes, we complain when our stomach goes out of function. Sometimes we forget the marvelous contraption that is the human body. And to suppose it could have happened by chance borders on an absurdity. But anyway, let's see the point. You get rid of the problem by denying there's a God. Now, what would you expect but a lot of su- of suffering? And that's my point.
You solve the problem by getting rid of belief in God. But you don't get rid of the pain that way, do you? You still have the pain. And now, uh, as I would say, you've made the pain ten thousand times worse. How is that? Well, I cannot speak for you. I've had my little share of pain in life, more than some and a lot less than others. But when I face pain, one of the great fortifiers to be able to bear it is hope.
And not merely hope that one day a cure might be found, but hope that pain is not ultimately meaningless. That is not simply destructive. That there is some ultimate good to be come out of it. And if indeed there is a God, then here do we have abundant cause for he- for for hope, that he will do what the Bible says he does for all who trust the Savior.
Says Paul in one of his letters, our light affliction, which is for a moment, workers for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. There is hope then, even in our suffering, if there's a God. So let's th- think together for a moment. What grounds of hope are there as we face pain? I look first at ourselves.
Forgetting the Bible and forgetting, just for the moment, God, let's look at our own attitudes. We don't regard all pain as bad, do we? If, madam, you're cutting the bacon with a very sharp knife and accidentally you cut your finger, you are glad of the pain, aren't you? Because the pain alerts you to the fact that you'll cut your finger and you automatically withdraw it. If you had no pain, you'd carry on cutting the finger and mixing it with the the the ham or whatever you were making. That wouldn't be good. And lepers, because they can't feel pain, will go on screwing a nut or something and not notice that their very fingers are falling to bits.
Pain is good, isn't it? And the gentleman who suddenly finds bad pains in the chest doesn't like them, but is glad for the warning that he might have trouble with his heart. Better that than him to drop dead without any warning. So some pain can be good, can't it? Of course, pain can get out of hand, like the brakes on my car, but that's another story. And then there's another thing, I, I wonder if you've noticed it. The marvelous effect that pain has on people.
And by that I mean, take the nurse who devotes her life to helping people in hospital. And the responsibility, and the experience, the noble character it will produce in that woman, and the doctors as well. Which we admire far more than we admire the layabout, self-indulgent, uh, bright young thing. Who is going to have pleasure and not help anybody in pain. Some people I know, you'll scarce believe it, they are prepared to endure an extraordinary amount of pain just to kick a football.
We have them in our country playing rugby, you know, fifteen of them, and they come out of the scrum, and they come off the field hobbling and black eyes and twisted noses and wrung ankles and all the rest of it. No one makes them do it. That's an extraordinary thing. You say, why do such idiots do that? Well, not idiots, some of them are getting millions of pounds, but that's another thing. They're doing it for the fun of the game, you see. Isn't that funny? If the game is interesting and worthwhile doing and enjoyable, we think the pain worthwhile. Funny that, isn't it?
We admire the intrepid explorer who goes across the Atlantic more than we do the sit at home by the fire who never went out of his back garden. Yes. And let's come to more serious things. The development of Earth's natural forces has been a marvelous story, hasn't it? Wonderfully exciting days when man discovered how to make a boat with sails that could float on the waters and defy the wave and the wind, and in fact use the wave and the wind to get him to his desired haven.
Marvelous, wasn't it? You will remember, of course, it's cost thousands of lives in the course of history. Would you say man ought never to have invented boats and sails? Take electricity. Took a lot of ma- ma- mankind a long while to discover it. Are you grateful for it? You light your home by electricity, by any chance? I'm very grateful for it. You'd never thought of banning the stuff as bad and wicked. You do know, don't you, that the discovery of it and the development of it has cost thousands of lives.
You say, but yes, the benefits have outweighed the cost. What about airplanes? What marvelous benefits they have conferred upon us. And on the mission field, particularly getting people who otherwise would die excruciating deaths to the hospitals and save their lives. We are aware of the thousands of deaths and injuries involved in discovering airplanes. We count it worthwhile?
I think we do. That's us. I'm not now for the moment talking about God. And then when we do come round to thinking about God and the way he made this universe and our world in particular. The book of Genesis says that when God made it all, he looked at it and said it was very good. I'm not sure myself it means it was very safe. Did God make electricity, may I ask? Well, of course he did, you say. Huh. Is electricity safe? Well, if, if you use it properly, safe and very beneficial.
If you make a mistake with it, it will slaughter you as soon as it will, well, it doesn't look at you, it doesn't know you. Take laser beams. They can destroy human tissue, can't they? It's precisely their ability to destroy human tissue that makes them such marvelous means of correcting faults in your eyes. You can't have fire that doesn't burn, laser beams that don't scorch. Mm. What about airplanes?
You're sitting in your comfortable seat, and, uh, something goes wrong with all four engines, and the plane crashes because of the law of gravity, the power of gravity. What would you have God do? Put gravity out of effect for that few, those few moments? Well, if he did, the world would be in a funny pla- funny condition. We need gravity to keep our atmosphere on Earth. If God, uh, switched off gravity, so to speak, we should die, a whole lot of us. We should lose our atmosphere. Can't have it both ways, can you?
So as I ponder those kind of things, I say to myself, well, we men and women, left to ourselves, think that if the project is only valuable enough and confers enough benefits, we are prepared for the cost in terms of pain, and even death. And when I think like that, then I begin to remember what God, according to the Bible, what project God had in mind when he created our world.
And I asked myself, was the project big enough? And worthwhile enough? So that left to myself, as I benefit from this divine project, I would myself be prepared to say, yes, thank God. In spite of all the pains that life's experience can throw at me, praise God for his project. It has been worth all the trouble. What then is that project? Why did God create our world and us in it?
According to the New Testament, and I read from Paul's letter to the Ephesians, the project is described like this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love, having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his ra- uh, of his grace.
And you notice the central project. What God had in mind was to produce what here the Bible calls sons of God. When the scriptures say that he chose this and decided it before the foundation of the world, it's not merely saying he chose this a long time ago. It was a long time ago, of course, but it's a logical priority.
Oh sir, one of these days you'll find your wife, I won't use the verb nagging because wives don't nag, but you know, sometimes they can be insistent. And it is gently suggested, and then the pressure is put on that you do really need a new oven in the kitchen, one of these super duper ovens that goes whiz bang and shows up lights and hums and all that kind of thing. And you see, the pressure will be brought on, you'll see. And, uh, at last the oven, of course, in the interests of international peace, is installed. And then one day you go out into the kitchen and you'll see your darling wife, and she's surrounded by flour up to her eyebrows and currants and orange peel and all sorts of funny things.
And you say, what are you doing that for, my dear? And she says, you've forgotten, haven't you? Your lovely, charming daughter comes of age next month. Well, what's that got to do with it, you say? Well, I've got to make a cake suitable for it, for the occasion. It's got to be a super duper cake, candles and all. And then the penny drops. Oh, I see why you craze me to buy a new oven. Yes, do you see the dear lady? For ladies are very thoughtful. First of all, she thought of the daughter's, uh, coming of age party, you see.
And having thought of that as the objective, she worked backwards. What shall I need? I want a cake. Well, what shall I need if I'm going to have a cake? Well, uh, oh, oven, I need a new oven. Do you see? Uh, she's working backwards from the goal she's aiming at. It was God's eternal desire to have sons of God. When, if I may, speaking humanly, talk about God's planning, and God decided he wanted sons, then the question arose, how could they be achieved? That meant, among other things, starting with creatures who could then become sons.
Well, if you're going to start with creatures, you'll have to have a world to put them on. Oh, so you have to create a world then. What was even before the foundation of the world, what was the purpose of having a world at all? Was that God might eventually have sons. We'd better stop, hadn't we? And ask what it means to be a child and a son of God. And here we shall have to be careful in our thinking, because popular religion will say, now we're all children of God, aren't we?
Everybody on the earth, every human being, yeah, we're all children of God. Well, we know what they mean. They mean that God treats all his creatures in a fatherly fashion. But in the terminology of the New Testament, let it not shock you when I say it, that not all human beings are children of God. All human beings are creatures of God, and he loves them. But not all human beings are children of God. And that can be readily seen if you allow the New Testament to tell you how people become children of God.
For instance, the first gospel of the first chapter of the Gospel of John puts it like this. Our Lord Jesus, the creator himself, became flesh. He was in the world, and the world was made by him. Unfortunately, the world knew him not. Didn't recognize its creator. He came to his own people, to his own things, that is, to his own creation, and his own people, that is the Jews, did not receive him. That is, the majority didn't.
But now listen. To as many as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God. Now it's a little bit of logic. You can't become what you already are. I can't become a human being. I've been one for the last seventy five years. You can only become something that you are not already. Did you hear what the verse said? To as many as receive him, to them he gave authority to become children of God, even to them who believe on his name.
Then what is the difference between a creature of God and a child of God? Well, let's examine the difference, you see, at the ordinary human level. Here's a absolute expert in computers, dot coms, and all the other business. And he has made a computer. It's an absolute wizard of a thing, you'll see. A semi-robot, I should think, you'll see. I'm proud of his creation, uh, his creation, you see. He can press the switch and off it goes here and bombard it with laser beams and I don't know what, and it comes back here. Ah, marvel, he's made it, you'll see. You'd almost think the thing was intelligent, though it isn't.
Huh. And then the aforesaid e- e- e- engineer expert computer man gets married and pleasantly produces a child. Tell me, what is the difference between the computer and the child? Is the ch- is the child just a super duper computer? No, there's a very big difference, isn't there? The engineer made the computer. He didn't make the child. The child has the computer's own very life.
I'm sorry, has the engineer's own very life. The child has. The computer doesn't. That child, because it has the life of the engineer, its father, will grow up, and we hope love the father. The computer never will. There is a whole category difference, isn't there? Between the computer that the engineer made and the child which he begat.
And all men and women are creatures of God, for he made them. Not all human beings are yet children of God. Because to be a child of God, according to Holy Scripture, you have to be begotten by God and receive the very life of God. Many as received him, he gave authority to become children of God, even to those that believe on his name, who were born, who were begotten, not of the will of man, nor the will of flesh, but begotten of God.
That is the marvel of salvation. We begin life as creatures of God. God makes it possible, for that was his design and purpose all the way along the line. God makes it possible for us in the course of human life as his creatures to rise in the universe to that enormous height of becoming. children of God, born of God, begotten by him, possessing the very life of God.
And at this point, it's worth our pausing a moment, isn't it, ladies and gentlemen? To ponder this big distinction, this important thing, and to ask ourselves, each one, have I become a child of God? You'll see there is also this difference. We didn't have any choice as to whether we be brought into the world as creatures of God, did we? I don't know about you, but nobody asked me whether I wanted to be born. Because God can make creatures without their consent, and does so regularly.
He's God, why shouldn't he do what he pleases? I say it humbly before God, God cannot make sons of God, children of God, without their consent. Listen to the terms. As many as received him. There lies the crux. I repeat, God made us as creatures without asking our permission or consent. We find ourselves here. We find we have a moral sense. God has put it in us. But now, if ever God is going to achieve the desire of his heart and we become children of God, then it will ultimately depend on whether we are prepared voluntarily to receive Jesus Christ as Savior.
At which point, if we do, God fathers within us his own very life, and we have eternal life, are born from above as children of God. But if we use our free will, not to receive the Savior, we remain as creatures. And that brings us to the other observation, doesn't it? You see, this world was never intended as anything more than a temporary stage.
The laws of thermodynamics tell us that the universe is running down anyway. This was never meant to be permanent. This was the temporary stage in the fulfillment of God's gracious eternal purpose, a world where he could put creatures on far enough away from him so that they are not overwhelmed by the glory of his majesty and reduced to sniveling little worms. A world where they might discover God, where they might learn something of his moral character and what God is like, and then be free to accept or reject God's offer.
Those who receive, not only receive eternal life already in this world and come to know their Father, and by God's love grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. But when this fleeting world is done, there will be the eternity that God designed for these who have become his children. But ladies and gentlemen, if people will not receive the Savior, and thus thwart God's intention, what then?
Well, you see, the world was only temporary anyway. And our lifespan on earth is temporary, isn't it? And when it finishes? What then? To miss the purpose. To go against God's objective. To live independently of the Savior. And to pass from this temporary world into the eternal. Is not to cease to exist.
But to enter an existence that the Bible calls the second death. To find God turn his back on you. And know an existence of frustration and eternal anguish. And in a sense, it is good, isn't it? Now we discover that this world is but temporary. It is not a paradise, not now anyway.
Lovely things in it, evidence of God's handiwork, but a fallen human race. Ultimately, it's loving of our Father to remind us this is a temporary world and to point us to the great eternity, to inquire what the purpose of life is, and to come running to the Savior, to be born of God's spirit and have eternal life. That was the plan. It involved man's free will, as I said earlier.
Must do. You can't have morality without free will. If a person is made to work like a machine, you can't hold them guilty for whatever they do, because they have no real choice. And to have us as moral creatures was important so that we might come to understand the character of God, his holiness, his righteousness, his love and his grace. And if our love for God was to be real, it could never satisfy God to make it like a machine. Why sir, if you made a robot and you're clever enough to do it, so sophisticated that when you came home at night and you sat down on your chair, in comes the robot and puts its arms around your neck and in its grotesque voice says, I do love you.
What would you do? You'd kick it in the shins and say, don't be so daft, don't. You're just programmed to do that. Love to be love has to be free, doesn't it? God doesn't force anybody to love him. Forgive my point saying it, you don't have to go to heaven. You say, what do you mean? Well, God gives you the choice. Awesome beyond description. But God gives us the choice to say no to God if we please.
Oh, don't say no. For God is the sum total of all good, and apart from him there is no good. And to say no to God would spell everlasting disaster. Say somebody, did God know when he created the world and us in it, gave human creatures free will. That men would abuse it.
That the scheme could go wrong. And result in endless pain. Yes, of course he knew it. You say he went on with the scheme. What kind of a God is he? He had this elaborate scheme to have what you call sons, and knew it would cause, the affecting of it would cause a lot of damage if people rejected it, and went ahead with the scheme anyway. What kind of a God is he? I can tell you, sir, madam.
If creatures turned against their creator and disobeyed him and went their own way, if they got deceived by the devil and engaged in sin and perversion, was there a safety net? Oh, wonderful story. Yes, there was a safety net. The God who foresaw what would happen, determined even before our world was built, to provide what is called the Lamb of God. To be the safety net, to be the rescue for disobedient and fallen and rebellious men and women.
And that is the gospel that Christ preaches. Came to seek and to save that which is lost. When man's rebellion and sin threatened him with destruction according to the law of God, oh, listen to the story. God had a safety net and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins, to make a way back to God, that we might be forgiven. Which brings me to my final point.
Why pain? There are many problems I've not even discussed, as you will see. Many answering things, questions that occur to you. We could spend many hours discussing them. But I come to this. When I survey the cross of Christ and perceive who it is that for my sake hung there, then there is a marvelous thing. Why pain? In order to achieve these eternal glories for us, God himself, in the person of Christ, has suffered for us, more than any one of us, more than all of us put together, and God knows what pain feels like.
And was prepared in the person of his son to suffer, that willful creatures and disobedient might be redeemed and brought to the glory that God had designed. So that believers, you will find, when pain assaults them, are trained by God's Holy Spirit to argue, he that spared not his son, but delivered us up, delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him freely give us all things?
In all their afflictions, said the Old Testament, he himself was afflicted. Why do Christians suffer? All sorts of reasons, questions beyond our solution often. But God assures us that the suffering is not merely destructive. It is aimed at the purifying of our faith. If need be, says J- Peter, Peter, you are in manifold heaviness by s- because of suffering, that the proving of your faith, faith that is much more precious than of gold, might be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus.
The faith that is necessary in our knowledge of God. The faith that will be necessary to trust God for all eternity. Some people think when they get home to heaven, faith will disappear and they will walk by sight. Fancy that. I don't think they really mean it altogether. We shall then see things that we do not see now and must take on faith. But sure enough, when we get home to heaven, we shall not be at liberty to disbelieve what God says, shall we? Think not. And since he will always be almighty, bigger than anything that we can comprehend, we shall still trust him and believe him.
And God is fashioning and purifying and strengthening our faith in the course of life. One final question. One of the difficulties in facing pain is that it seems to be distributed disproportionately. Some people, some families of believers seem to suffer an enormous amount, and others of us get off lightly. I have not time to answer that question, even if I could.
I am interested to notice that God had a whole book written on it. It's called the book of Job. But I use a humble analogy. In some walks of life, some people have to be tested more than others, don't they? Airline stewardesses are a charming bunch, and they have to be trained on all sorts of things that we, the passengers, never dream of, and to help us if the plane, uh, uh, uh, gets wrecked or something, and all those things. trained this. The airline pilots have a far more severe training.
And every now and again they're tested, aren't they? I remember talking to a friend of mine who's an airline captain, talking about the testing they have to go through in the simulators every so many months. He said, you know, and some of the men that run those simulators are absolute bullies. When you get into the simulator, they will pile onto you all kinds of emergencies, one after the other, till it reduces strong men to tears. They can reproduce the sound of the engines going and the wings being damaged and violent storms, and if the captain does the wrong thing in the simulator, they can simulate the crash.
And he says some men can't stick it. Produces strong men to tears. Why do they test them so severely? Well, because of the weight of responsibility that they must shoulder. You know, when we get home to glory, all shall be saved, but some will have bigger responsibilities than others. You say, what will make the difference? Well, not necessarily knowledge, good though knowledge is. If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him.
And if the responsibilities of an eternity in serving, reigning with Christ in the particular capacities he will give us. And perhaps the bigger the capacity, the bigger the responsibility, the bigger the test that he will allow us to go through. And so must we trust him. But then I think, even as I say these words, my mind goes back to my own assembly of a few years ago, when a good man would rise to his feet at the Lord's Supper to give thanks or to talk to us.
He could neither read nor write, and knew the Lord. Had been a sterling witness for him in his time, and now in old age was crippled with excruciating arthritis. And he will hobble to his feet, and he would say, my brethren, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. That's true. It wasn't putting on a brave face a bit. And you know, countless Christians would arise, if they could, from their graves, for becoming a Christian can involve you in more suffering than you had when you weren't a Christian.
Still it is that when Muslims get converted to Christ and get baptized, they can be rejected and sometimes executed by their erstwhile family and friends. Thousands of Christians have gone to the lions and been tied to stakes simply because they were Christians. Christ does not hide it from us. Become a believer, and he will ask you to take up your cross and follow him. You may find more suffering than you had before. Ask any Christian about it who has suffered thus for the Lord, and they will reply like my friend, oh, but it's an honor to suffer for him, and it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
So may God use this humble meditation. First of all, to help us explain the purpose of creation, this possibility to rise from becoming mere creatures of God to becoming children of God. And as if, if I may, as your departing friend, I would ask you personally and sincerely, have you become a child of God? Have you personally received the Savior?
And then God use our meditation to speak not only to our heads, but both to our heads and to our hearts, to comfort us in our sufferings, that we might bear them to the glory of God. And secondly, and thirdly, God grant us a compassion for the people around us. Hard enough for those of us who know the shepherd before we suffer. Hard enough sometimes to endure life's sufferings. Very hard for those who don't know the shepherd to pass through life's sufferings and wonder whether there's a God of love at all.
God, give us a heart of compassion and words of wisdom to speak from heart to heart and from mind to mind, that men and women might be brought, even through life's apparent disasters, to find the Savior and with him eternal glory. Shall we pray? Our Father, as fellow travelers through this temporary world and towards the great eternity. We do bless thee for our creation and all the joys it has brought. We thank thee now for its troubles that make us seek the true purpose of life.
How we bless thee tonight for the coming of thy dear Son. Thou hast not remained hidden in the darkness. He has told thee out, never more fully and wonderfully than when he suffered for us on the cross. Bless then our meditation on these things tonight, we pray. Grant that none who have sat before thee tonight here shall pass through life without receiving the Savior. Grant that all of us who have received him may be given grace to trust thee, and trust thee understandingly while life shall last, knowing that thou dost cause all things in the end to work together for good, for eternal good, for those that love thee and are called according to thy purpose.
So may thine evening grace and peace be upon us all, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
